The Argosy — page 281: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

262 The Mystery of Allan Grale. question. ‘‘ No, ma’am, master wasn’t in long before you came home. Mr. Allan eined alone, ma’am.” ‘““T hope he had everything he wanted,” said Mrs. Grale solicitously. She carried with her the early impressions of humbler days, when the ‘‘eye of the mistress ” was essential to the cooking of a chop or a potato. Her idea of woman’s duty began and ended with the care of creature comforts. “Yes, ma’am,” said James. ‘‘Mr. Allan seemed a bit vexed when he found you did not come in to dinner; but he did not wait. He went out as soon as he had dined, quite immediate.” ‘““T’m sure,” said Mary Anne, as the man went away, ‘‘ we don’t have so much pleasure, that they need grudge us any little item of it that falls by chance in our way. For all papa’s fuss about finding nobody at home and being left to feel neglected, he was not, you hear, in himself much before we were. ‘The fact is, mother, you have spoilt him. I expect you began wrong at the beginning.” ‘Wait till you have a husband of you own, Mary Anne,” said her mother. ‘‘Itis a wife’s duty to consult her husband’s wants and pleasures.” Mary Anne laughed. ‘And is she to have none of her own?” she asked. Mrs. Grale shook her head doubtfully. ‘‘ It seems so sometimes,” she said. ‘‘ It does seem hard if I was not free to take the only oppor- tunity of seeing a dear old friend of my youth ; one who has been away in Australia for thirty years, and will soon be going back again.” Matters had happened in this fashion. When Mrs. Grale’s call on Lady Laura Bond was drawing to a close, that lady happened to say she was expecting a visit that evening from a Miss Matthewson, whose acquaintance she had made during a tour in Australia, where this Miss. Matthewson had spent the greater part of her life. The name and description had instantly arrested Mrs. Grale’s attention, and by a few inquiries she ascertained that this Miss Matthewson was an old neighbour aud playmate of her own when she was a girl, a young lady who had emigrated with her family many years before. ‘‘ Ah, the happy days when we were young!” Mrs. Grale had ex- claimed, breaking through her awkward conventionality, in a burst of genuine feeling, and forgetting all the awe she felt for the lady of title. ‘‘Many a time have Bell Matthewson and I and my sister Marget spent a merry afternoon over our girdle cakes or our rowan jelly! Maybe, Lady Laura, you'll have heard Miss Matthewson mention Polly and Marget Burn?” ‘Was Burn your maiden name ?” Lady Laura asked ; ‘‘ I amsure I have heard her mention it.” She was sure of nothing of the kind, _but she was a tired woman of society, who rejoiced in a sensation of any kind, and Mrs. Grale’s homely emotion had amused her fancy, and, she had a mischievous wish to see the two old friends meet. Bell Matthewson had risen in the world more slowly and more naturally than Mrs. Grale GOMIGDIOOKS )